The present invention relates to a method and a device for identical processing of several simultaneous analog signals of short duration. It also relates to a tracking radar using this device.
It is frequently necessary to apply a same processing operation simultaneously to several analog signals. This is the case, for example, in tracking or fire control radars, and more particularly in receivers with parallel reception channels, which require a very good identity of phase and amplitude between channels under all conditions (of input signal level, of frequency band and of operating temperature).
Hitherto, the solutions chosen for making devices with parallel channels of good identity have been of two types:
The first solution consists in making the processing channels as identical as possible by matching the electrical components or the elementary functions.
Apart from the sorting which this solution requires, and consequently the cost of the device constructed on this basis, the main disadvantage of this first solution is the instability of this identity when the components age and when the defective electronic components are replaced.
The second solution consists in using one or more calibrating devices integrated into the systems possessing such processing channels. However, the resulting identity between channels is only achieved to within 1 dB for the amplitude and to within 0.1 radian for the phase.
The present invention makes it possible to overcome the abovementioned disadvantages and relates to a so-called recirculation method to a corresponding device, which make it possible, in principle, to obtain identity between the processing channels and to considerably reduce the differential errors between channels, associated with the level of the signals to be processed.